Reality
by DragonRing
Summary: "Am I real? Are my limbs real? Are they not the fruit of my dreaming mind that never uttered a single rational, comprehensive thought but exists only through fantasies?" Exploring the experience of Resurrection: A short Oneshot dedicated to the upcoming game, The Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild


_**Author's quick note:** I recommend to read this slowly and aloud, in a dreamy voice. Maybe you'll feel like the character this writing is dedicated to?_

Reality

 _''Open your eyes...''_

A faint, calming sound of rippling water, repetitive but never quite the same. That's the first thing I remember.

Soft warmth encloses me and dandles me in security. The sound of bubbles rings in my ears whenever I breathe out; silence pervades at every inhale. My senses slowly pass through my body, becoming aware of every limb and member. I know the name of each of them. My head is resting on something hard, but my stirring fingertips cannot discern the material of the surface I am lying on. My arms are slightly stretched out, just like my legs. There is a tighter feeling around my middle that I can vaguely relate to fabric, like clothing.

I have had many of these dreams before. They are my favourite, for reasons I have never considered until now. I feel a flutter of excitement inside of me whenever I enter this world in which I am able to be and to move. Dreams in which I have a body, in which I am sitting, standing upright, even walking. But in every former dream, the feeling my soles shed to my sleeping mind felt blunt and did not satisfy me for long.

The sensations I am witnessing now, however, cannot be compared to any dream I had before. Everything feels enhanced a hundredfold, the sounds around me fill my mind with swirling notes while my searching fingers are electrified with the perception of touching for the first time. Everything feels new, grand, overwhelming, spectacular, terrific!, it feels –

… real…?

Am I real? Are my limbs real? Are they not the fruit of my dreaming mind that never uttered a single rational, comprehensive thought but exists only through fantasies?

It is a new word to me. One I have never heard before, yet its meaning seems obvious. Reality; the antithesis of a dream. And still, I am convinced that all of this is but another voyage into the depths of my mind where all is secure, calm and serene. For a dream to become reality, it would need the presence of the only sense I know of that I have never experienced fully. Blurry flashes of colour played with me before, but they did not last. My dreams were never powerful enough to _see_.

A new feeling enters my body, this time a slight tingle in my chest. Something in there is tickling me, and my next breath bubbles out louder. Rushing rings in my ears as my heart tests its strength, beating slowly at first, then faster, until it is pounding so hard that I fear it might jump out of me. I hear my voice sigh out softly at the power surging through my extremities, but something is still keeping me down. The doubt. The mystery.

What is happening to me? I know that I am moving. My head rolls from side to side lazily in the warm water, my chest rises and falls with deepening breaths.

Am I entering reality? Am I… awakening?

 _''Open your eyes...''_

It is a voice.

That voice woke me.

Softly it echoes from afar through the water. It speaks softly, yet its command is clear just as its meaning is clouded to my mind. I feel my brow crease with a frown of uncertainty. How? What am I to do to obey? I have never had the feeling of moving orbs or lifting eyelids. Is my body made to see?

 _''Open your eyes...''_

The warmth around me is shifting. I feel it dance over my body at a greater speed, as if it wanted to crawl underneath me. A rushing sound startles me, but still I am unable to do what the voice asks. Fiercely I flex my cheeks and forehead to find the pair of lids I am meant to lift, but nothing feels as if I could move it except for my twitching nose, my opening lips and my frowning brow.

What does reality feel like? It is not a perception I would call pleasant, but rather a state forced upon me that I had no right to choose or deny. It is just happening. The soothing, cradling warmth slips through my fingers with the sinking water, and suddenly my breaths enter my lungs much too fast. I hear myself moan out through a distant veil while a cold touch moves from the tip of my nose down across my face and to my throat. Then the sounds brighten to a crystal clarity, and I am greeted by a deep droning I have not noticed before. It is constant, soft, and calming. But it compensates only little for the chill draping over me like a cold blanket. I frown more.

 _''Wake up, Link.''_

I perceive the answer to my doubts as a faint, jittering touch beneath my forehead. The glue of sleep holding my lids sealed dissipates in the cool air surrounding me, as if it was washed away by the vanishing water. And just like that, I begin to see.

A little peek at first to test the power of my newly discovered pupils, and I am greeted by blue light. I lower my lids to rest for a while, then attempt a second glance. The light morphs into short criss-crossing rays aligned in a circle above me, like… like a sun. I can discern dots below them, with a single blue point in the centre. How strange reality looks, I wonder.

The cold now enshrouds me completely, warmth being long gone, and my body does something odd. It shifts of its own accord, tiny side-to-side movements, even though I did not give it the order to do so. I find myself wishing that the warmth would come back, that my newly discovered eyes would disappear once more and let me forever dwell in the darkness of my dreaming mind.

But I know that this time is over. The heart I have been given fills me with power with every beat, a power I know I can – and have to – use. That voice is right.

It is time to wake up.

000

 _ **Author's second note:** I literally spent **days** musing, cogitating and speculating about the meaning of the first **two minutes** of the intro to the newest entry of our most beloved gaming series, _ Breath of the Wild. _And even now, over a month after E3, it still won't leave me alone. I guess that's the magic of_ The Legend of Zelda _captivating me once again. And to be honest, I didn't expect anything less._

 _In this short writing, I tried to capture what Link might have been feeling and thinking during the first minute of his new existence. I wanted to do this not necessarily to answer questions, but rather to create new ones and to try out the idea of how one might feel when being resurrected (the shrine must be called the ''Resurrection Shrine'' for a reason)._

 _And lastly, I wrote this to welcome the newest Link with the sweet ponytail and gorrrrrgeous body (xD) into our long chain of heroes. May he fight bravely and find happiness in the most wondrous land of Hyrule this world has ever seen. **Good luck, Link! ;)**_

 _DR_


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